The final film in our Tournées Festival is a winner of the 2008 Palme d’Or at Cannes, the film follows a class at a diverse Parisian public junior high school. In an unusual example of art imitating life, the film was based on the best-selling book by real-life teacher François Bégaudeau, who also wrote the screenplay and plays himself in the film. As François attempts to teach the French language to his multi-ethnic students, he offers both the opportunity and the threat of modern cultural assimilation. No one is above reproach in this difficult and important film.

Malik, a 19-year-old French-Arab, enters prison as an uneducated naïf and is thrust into rigidly defined social system rife with corruption, cronyism, and racism. Director Audiard’s intricate study of the bloody rules and rituals behind bars never once glorifies the shocking violence that becomes a rite of passage for Malik. A Prophet instead offers a clear-eyed examination of the ambiguous figure Malik cuts in maneuvering the laws and loyalties of the violent prison world.

The second flim of our Tournées Festival features a swirling, impressionistic portrait of an artist who regretted nothing, La vie en Rose stars Marion Cotillard as the legendary French icon Edith Piaf. From the mean streets of the Belleville district of Paris to the dazzling limelight of New York's most famous concert halls, Piaf's life was a constant battle to sing and survive, to live and love. Piaf remains, one of France's immortal icons, her voice one of the indelible signatures of the 20th Century.

The French Film Festival, a month long festival opens on Thursday, March 1 with Coco Avant Chanel (Coco before Chanel). Anne Fontaine’s thoughtful exploration of the pre-fame life of the world’s greatest fashion designer focuses on Coco Chanel during the Belle Epoque. The film opens in 1893 with a powerfully grim scene of 10-year-old Coco and her sister unceremoniously dumped at an orphanage and ends around World War I, a few years before the Chanel empire is launched.